ISSN 2320-5407 International Journal of Advanced Research (2014), Volume 2, Issue 8, 668-678 668 Journal homepage: http://www.journalijar.com INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED RESEARCH RESEARCH ARTICLE Assessment of in vitro anti-Trichomonas vaginalis activity of deer musk Abeer Fathy Badawy, Noha Abdelfattah Elleboudy, Hend Mohamed Hussein Parasitology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain-Shams University, Abbasya, Cairo, Egypt Manuscript Info Abstract Manuscript History: Received: 25 June 2014 Final Accepted: 26 July 2014 Published Online: August 2014 Key words: Trichomonas vaginalis, Trichomoniasis, deer musk *Corresponding Author Abeer Fathy Badawy Trichomoniasis is a sexually transmitted disease afflicting many women worldwide. The disease is usually not life-threatening, but has been associated with the development many serious health problems. The development of resistant Trichomonas vaginalis strains necessitates the development of other nontraditional medications. Studies on deer musk showed its anti-bacterial and anti-fungal affects. This study was carried out to evaluate in vitro effects of different concentrations of musk 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30% (vol/vol) for 24, 48, 72and 96 hours at 37 °C on multiplication, viability and motility of Trichomonas vaginalis also morphological changes using scanning and transmission electron microscopy were reported and optical density of treated cultures were assayed. The minimal inhibitory concentrations of musk were 10% at 96h, 15% at 72h, 20% and 25% at 48h and 30% at 24h. The calibration curve of musk studied concentrations was found to be linear (R 2 = 0.942) indicating large positive association between the concentration of musk and the optical density of the culture.Musk is a safe natural product having the privilege of being anti Trichomonas vaginalis as well as antifungal and antibacterial properties so it provides a promising source for new drugs development. Copy Right, IJAR, 2014,. All rights reserved Introduction Trichomoniasis; caused by Trichomonas vaginalis flagellated protozoan parasite is the most common non-viral sexually transmitted disease (STD) (WHO, 2001) with an estimated 250 million cases worldwide (Calzada et al., 2007), yet little attention is paid to trichomoniasis (Soper, 2004). Trichomanas vaginalis is more prevalent in females than in males with no definite reason (Bhunu and Mushayabasa, 2011) .The clinical presentation shows a wide spectrum as it varies from asymptomatic infection to severe health problems as pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, premature rapture of membranes, low-birth-weight infants, pre-term delivery, abortion and high infant mortality (Cudmore and Garber, 2010; Scopel et al., 2013) also acquiring infection at delivery may predispose to maternal postpartum sepsis (Sebitloane et al., 2011). It is also implicated in cervical cancer (Viikki et al., 2000) and studies links trichomoniasis to amplifying human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and enhancing its transmission by two-folds (McClelland et al., 2007; and Sharafi et al., 2013; Sherrard et al., 2014) as co-infection facilitated by local inflammation and microscopic breaches in mucosal barriers as well as degradation of a secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor, which normally protects cells from HIV infection (Gehrig and Efferth ,2009). Approved drugs of treatment of Trichomonas vaginalis infection are 5-nitroimidazoles, with metronidazole being the drug of first choice, which is also used for treatment of other microorganism as Entamoeba, Giardia, and anaerobic bacteria (Rabiee et al., 2012). Considering the limited drugs in protozoal chemotherapy with nearly similar mechanisms of action when resistant strains develop there will be no available drugs to use. Also the association of metronidazole treatment with numerous side effects prompted the need to identify new alternative drugs to improve the current chemotherapy of Trichomonas vaginalis infection (Gehrig and Efferth, 2009). The search for new drugs is both cost and time consuming, while the development and progress of vaccination against